The 1918 Influenza Pandemic Essay example -- Health Medicine Diseases

The 1918 flu PandemicThe United States entered the War in 1918 and brought influenza to America that medical examination historian Roy Porter has called the owing(p)est single demographic shock army personnel has ever experienced, the most deadly pestilence since the Black Death.1 In the belated nineteen thirties, members of the Federal Writers Project (FWP) with the Works increase Administration (WPA), interviewed people who remembered surviving the pandemic. 2 They described a world caught run into guard. Newly established base camps became makeshift hospitals and morgues. Doctors, embalmers, laundresses and florists did a brisk trade. prevalent venues closed, and as entire families became ill, mothers, husbands and soldiers remember coping with quarantines and loss of family. Sufferers put great stock in their force to treat themselves as doctors and other health officials struggled with ineffective prevention and treatment strategies. For them, the flu of 1918 marked a major life change but it also became a testament to their ability to survive.The flu came fast and it hit hard. Dr. Curtis Atkinson, then a First deputy sheriff in the Medical Corps at Fort Riley, Kansas remembered the first military quarantines. When the flu epidemic struck Call Field, Sunday, December, 1918, the boys began to come down very rapidly. A foot ball game was in progress. The commanding officer immediately ordered the game stopped and sentinels posted at the gate of the sports stadium with orders that no one was to be admitted.3 Another soldier, Dr. William W. Wood remembered soldiers and civilians dying kindred sheep.4 Melinda Parker remembers how fast she lost her husband. My husband was workin at the shipyards in Algiers an he got the flu an in four day... ...arolina Writers Project.14 J. D. Washburn, consultation by Douglas Carter.15 fib of Career (import) of J. H. Kimbrough, oppugn by Marie Reese.16 Mountain Sharecroppers, Interview by Anne Winn Stevens. 17 Porter, Roy. 48418 Dr. William W. Wood, Interview by Miss Effie Cowan.19 Reminiscences centered around Call Field, Interview by Ethel Dulaney.20 Dr. Wood, Cowan21 Coal Fields to the Cotton Mill, Interview by southwesterly Carolina Writers Project.22 J. D. Washburn, Interview by Douglas Carter.23 The Influenza Epidemic, Interview by Jane K. Leary.24 Note French Canadian Personalities, Interview by Robert Grady.25 The Influenza Epidemic, Interview by Jane K. Leary.26 Glenn Kanipe. Interview with Ethel Deal.27 Melinda Parker, Interview by Louisiana Folklore